PHA Facilitation and Teamwork Dynamics: Or Why Not All Hazops Are Created Equal

Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) is a fundamental element of every process safety management program.  The various techniques (what if, HAZOP, HAZID, LOPA) used to evaluate the risks associated with a process, project, or particular piece of equipment, are well established and in many companies they have been standardized and templates developed for their execution. Yet, not two PHAs are the same. The fact that a PHA is always a team effort where ideas are shared can lead to very different outcomes depending on the facilitator skills, and the team members and their attitudes. Based on the author’s direct experience a PHA can be regarded as a very powerful safety tool or it can be one of the worst punishments for a gung ho engineer or operator.  Since all qualitative and semi quantitative PHA techniques are structured around brainstorming it is important to think about how to generate, share, and parcel out these ideas.  The risk of turning a PHA into a boring and endless exercise is very real, but the opportunity of using the analysis sessions as a stage where the PHA team members can showcase their vast knowledge can be a very rewarding one.  This paper collects observations from the authors from great PHAs and from some of really bad ones, it presents ideas on how to think outside the HAZOP box, and how to empower and engage the review team members.